In 2013, my best friend and I left for our first Californian adventure and loved every minute of it. When 2014 came along and we were looking for a new adventure, flights to L.A. were very reasonable so we decided to continue exploring California and head South to San Diego.

We went in June, for 8 days, and based ourselves out of North Park where we rented a place on airbnb for 5 days which we absolutely loved. You can check it out here, John and Christina were great hosts and the house offered a great outdoor space to cook and chill at. *You will need a car if you go to San Diego, like L.A. the city is better enjoyed if you have a car to travel between different neighborhoods.

Hikes

California is beautiful and we wanted to spend some time exploring the outdoors while on this trip. On our second day in San Diego, we headed out on a great hike on Cowles Mountain Trail. This offered a superb view of our surroundings although it was quite busy!

Hike at Cowles Mountain Trail – San Diego

A few days later, we headed to Torrey Pines State Park for another hike. The views were breathtaking with a blue sky and blue sea. If you plan on going, bring a lot of water and some good walking shoes, the trails are pretty narrow.

A hike in Torrey Pines State Park

General tips

While we did visit some popular spots like Balboa Park, the San Francisco Zoo, Seaport Village and Hotel de Coronado, that wasn’t the best part of our trip. San Diego is a great place to relax and we really enjoyed walking around in La Jolla and finding cute stops and shops everywhere we went.

We didn’t eat out too much while on this trip, but did make a stop at Puesto in La Jolla. Puesto is a cheap eat that serves all-natural meat, sustainable seafood and local organic greens. Their food was amazing and Mexican food is a must when you are so close to Mexico. We cooked some great salads from fruits and veggies we had bought at the San Diego Farmers Market. I always love visiting the markets when I visit a city, you get to see some local produce and meet some nice people that are always happy to share their story.

Back to Manhattan Beach

We finished our trip by driving back to L.A. and heading to our favourite spot : Manhattan Beach!

As mentioned last time, Manhattan Beach is just a picture perfect part of L.A. the shops and restaurants are cute, the beach is amazing and surfers are walking around everywhere. We had a great day : manicure at Zenka, beach time and cold beer at Brewco Manhattan Beach.

If I have a single tip for enjoying San Diego it’s definitely to go off course and try some hikes and smaller neighborhoods. You might be surprised by what you find!

In 2013, my best friend Camille and I decided to leave on a Californian adventure. The decision was impulsive but the trip planned out and quite successful! Going back to our childhood, I think we both had some fantasies about California : surfing, beaches, sunny days and a laid-back vibe.

San Francisco View

We decided to take a flight from Montreal to San Francisco and to take a return flight out of Orange County: hello O.C! Our 10 days were split as follows:

Days 1-3 San Francisco

Days 4-5 Driving from San Francisco to LA

Days 6-9 LA & Orange County

Day 10 Leave from Orange County

We rented out two apartments for our stays in San Francisco and L.A. and a car for the last seven days of our trip. We had a very few things planned out and ended up walking around and sightseeing without a plan.

Here are a few of our best memories!

On our second day in town, we headed out for a 4-hour walk around San Francisco to get to the Golden Gate; we obviously didn’t think it would be this long. Once we finally got to the bridge, we were told there was no way of getting out of there, other than walking and had to walk an extra half hour to get a cab: exhaustion was upon us.

Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco

On day four when we went to pick out our rental car, we were surprised with an upgrade: from a cheap compact to a brand new blue mustang! It wasn’t a convertible but it was surely a sweet ride!

The car we got instead of our compact!

On our drive from San Francisco to LA we drove on highway 1 around Big Sur. The views were breathtaking even without the sun and we became obsessed with the smell! We’re still not sure what it is, but we’re pretty sure we could recognize it if we smelled it again.

Big Sur

In love with Californian wines, but with no time to visit Napa Valley, we stopped by Robert Hall Winery in Paso Robles. There we did some wine tasting and bought a bottle for the road. Later that day, we ended up on a beach in Santa Monica with some goodies bought at Whole Foods. Best picnic ever!

Santa Monica Sunset with wine

During our last night in LA, we decided to go to the Griffith Observatory. This is a great spot to watch the sun set over LA. We were there for a few hours just waiting for it to come down and enjoying the awesome view of the City of Angles.

View from the Griffith Observatory

Finally, I can’t not mention that we took the WB Studio Tour . We were on the set of friends and had the highlight of our trip when we were on the set of the Gilmore Girls.